this old world must still be spinning around
by hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: AU in which Broadsky shot Angela, not Mr. Nigel-Murray. Non-romantic/no pairing.
1. Chapter 1: The Change in the Story

They hug, so happy to see each other because Broadsky is still hunting somewhere out there and oh god they can't even look around them anymore, too much, too much stress and fear and worry, always worry, when they have enough to worry about already. So instead they hug, and kiss, and Jack flutters his fingers on the belly and gets that grin like he always does, because the baby has started to kick back at him whenever he does that. Makes him cry, sometimes, because he never, ever thought this would ever, ever happen, and here it is, any day now, he'll be a daddy. And they smile at each other. And they step off the curb.

A shot fired from the distance Broadsky was at, you won't hear it. You wouldn't hear it, no matter how keen your ears were. Jack never can be sure why why Angela's face quirked, because of course she couldn't hear it. He doesn't believe in psychics or saints, not really, not anymore. But if he did believe in them, one of them would be Angela. She didn't hear it, couldn't have heard it, he knows that. But he can't shake the feeling that she might have…what, felt it? Seen it? Smelled it? Somehow, though, her face grew still and she met his eyes, and it is a testament to how far away Broadsky was when he fired that Angela was able to get out the words "I love you" before the bullet ripped into her shoulder, knocked her off her feet, spilled her blood over the pavement and into the road they'd been about to cross together.

Later, Booth will try to say that Broadsky was probably aiming for Jack. That Broadsky was a sick son of a bitch, but even he wouldn't choose to shoot a pregnant woman. Of course, in his head, Jack knows that Angela was the most devastating person to lose outside of Brennan herself — and with Booth guarding Brennan, Angela became the ideal target. By shooting a pregnant woman, as Booth knew, Broadsky'd shown his own fervor, his own dedication to his cause. He'd also ruined everyone, Jack especially.

The only person not immediately ruined, in the aftermath of that tiny moment, was the baby. Of course, her birth was awful, horrifying and full of screams and tears and pain that could not have been more unlike the normal pain and tears and screams, as her mother flickered in and out of consciousness, as her doctors worked to save them both, as her newborn lungs refused to work, as her mother's heart flatlined and never came back. Her mother died. Something in her father broke. As her father clutched her mother's hand, kept talking through tears, refusing to let the doctors give up, the baby opened her eyes and saw nothing. And Catherine Temperance Pearly Gates Montenegro-Hodgins stared sightlessly up at the fluorescent lights, screaming her displeasure at her sudden, unwelcome expulsion from her mother.


	2. Chapter 2: The Ashes in the River

Jack didn't know what to do with Angela's body. She'd been an organ donor, a tissue donor, of course, but beyond that she'd never told him. When the doctors asked, he couldn't even look at them. All he could see was Angela. Her face had relaxed in death, slackened in that way he didn't usually see on bodies in the lab. Somewhere behind him, suddenly, he heard a baby crying. Jack hadn't seen or held the baby yet. Somehow he felt...He'd never tell anyone this, never, because they'd look at him the way he'd look at anyone else who said it. But he felt like if he held the baby, Angela would actually be dead, and the baby would make everything worse.

When they realized - too late to not cause pain - that he wasn't going to answer, the doctors left him alone. A nurse gently gave him directions to the baby ward, just in case, but his face didn't change when she told him. She had already told him, to his back, that the baby was a girl, and that she was blind. But he hadn't reacted then, either. And so, wrapped in a worn pink blanket, Catherine Temperance Pearly Gates Montenegro-Hodgins (or Baby Girl Montenegro-Hodgins, as she was known at the time) was carried down a brightly lit hallway, into a room full of pink squealing babies in clear plastic boxes.

Her father sat, his eyes dry and empty, staring at the bones and muscle and blood that had once been her mother. And her mother's friends, in the hallway, tried to silently decide what to do. How to react.

The first person to touch Jack Hodgins after his wife died was Temperance Brennan. A light, shivering hand on his bent shoulder. That was enough, in that moment, to open the floodgates, to break down the facade he'd built up inside his head that if he didn't move or breathe or touch anything maybe she'd wake up, look at him, call him a name and ask to see the baby. He knew, the moment Dr. Brennan laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, that nothing he could do or say or not do or say would ever bring her back.

Dr. Brennan called Angela's father, and Booth tracked down a few of her oldest friends. They all told Hodgins the same thing: Angela didn't ever decide what she wanted to do with her body. After the harvesting process, it was really up to him. And so he thought about it. Stood behind plate glass and looked at the baby he still hadn't held. Went to Angela's office, looked at the paintings and sculptures she'd left half-finished. And decided, eventually.

The first time he held his daughter was on the bank of a river near the Jeffersonian. It lead to the sea, eventually, over a winding journey through beautiful terrain. He held Catherine in one arm, wrapped in a fuzzy yellow blanket; in the other arm he cradled a small, plain pinewood box. Only half-hearing the whispering of the wind and the birds, the laughter of the river, the soft cooing sounds of the sleeping baby, Jack knelt and opened the box. Tipped its contents into the river. Watched his wife drift away, sparkling on the surface of the water in a sort of macabre echo of her beauty.

Then, as if he'd surfaced after a long dive, he gulped down air, blinked into the sun. Stood up again. Peered down at the baby in his arms. And walked away.


	3. Chapter 3: The Storm in the Wake

Angela's wake was supposed to be small and quiet. Jack had, as far as he was able, imagined a few close friends drinking wine and watching the baby sleep in a darkened room. But then, nothing relating to Angela had ever happened the way Jack had thought it would. Everyone Angela had ever met, it seemed, felt the urge to show up. The guest house was packed, noisy and full of smiling and hugging and small crying jags and more smiling.

As the sun set behind a haze of storm clouds, Angela's dad showed up, his normally sinister aura strangely diminished, and sat in a corner holding the baby for hours. A gaggle of artists, friends from Paris that Jack had half-forgotten, some of Angela's old partners, even her ex-husband: they all came, red-eyed and bearing alcohol and food and flowers and gifts for the baby.

The team was there, too, of course. And Booth and Sweets, in a moment of brilliance, got a pass for Zack to come. When Jack saw his best friend, the tiniest flicker of joy bubbled up in his heart. The pair sat quietly in another corner of the room, talking about nothing; only the way Zack rested a gloved hand on Jack's shoulder belied the sadness of the situation.

As the night went on, the storm grew closer. Brennan and Booth got into a loud argument about the existence of an afterlife, and Jack couldn't be inside anymore. He slipped out, stealing the baby from Angela's dad, and stood on a small balcony watching lightning flicker in the distance. The air was heavy and thick; it smelled like rain and rust and that odd burning scent of a good lightning storm.

"You know, Cat," Jack murmured, surprising himself with the shortened name, "your mommy loved storms. One time, when she was pregnant with you, she woke me up and pulled me out on our porch and made me count with her." The baby shifted slightly in her sleep, started to wake up. A loud crack of thunder startled her, and she started to wail.

"That's not good." The words came from behind him. Zack had come outside, too, quietly following Jack and the baby. "When it stormed when I was young, my parents would sing to me."

Without turning around, Jack said, "Oh yeah? What'd they sing?"

Zack didn't respond. When Jack turned around, the other man had gone back inside to support Brennan in her argument. Jack felt a smile play on his face for a moment. He looked back down at the baby. "Your mommy would know what to do, Cat." The baby kept wailing, working one of her arms out of the swaddling and punching the air with a tiny fist. "Shh, shh, hush, come on, I've got you, you're fine."

In a panic, Jack bent his head to the infant's and quietly sang the first song to come to mind. "Oh the sun is surely sinkin' down, and the moon is slowly risin', so this old world must still be spinnin' 'round, and that means I still love you." Cat's wail was quieter, halting now, and her arm had relaxed; taking this as a good sign, Jack continued, still as softly as he could. "So close your eyes, you can close your eyes, it's all right. I don't know no love songs, buh buh buh baa-daa, buh buh baa, sorry, Cat, I don't know all the..." He looked at the baby's face. She'd gone back to sleep.

Thunder and lightning roared and flashed around them. Jack Hodgins held his daughter and looked out at the storm.


End file.
